


Storm of the Century

by fardareismai



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurricane Harvey, real places only barely changed to protect the innocent, real-life events, real-world au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 20:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12020754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: He only ever sees her once a year, but he's sure that this year, after the devastation of Harvey, there's no way she'll come.





	Storm of the Century

**Author's Note:**

> **Some of you know that I live in Texas. I'm not very close to the Gulf Coast, and so I was not personally hit by the recent hurricane, but I have family that was, and Corpus Christi in particular is very close to my heart. I have been doing work recently to aid in the relief efforts, so it was top-of-mind when I felt like I had to write something or die, which is why this story exists.**
> 
> **If you want to do something to help (it comes highly recommended), feel free to donate to[any of the charities at this link](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=5239).**
> 
> **All of the places discussed here are real and I have been there. The fish store's location is changed in this story to protect the innocent (but if you ever go to Corpus, do buy fish from a place in Flour Bluff called The Crab Shack).**

It would be cheaper if he didn't bother opening the shop, Killian knew. There was only one ship that had suffered little enough damage that it was making the fishing runs, so he only had a tiny amount of product- a few pounds of grouper, a pound and a half of orange roughy, and five pounds of the big gulf tails that could rarely compete anymore with the cheaper shrimp from Sri Lanka that were shipped to the grocery stores these days. What he did- buying fish fresh from the boats and selling it from his own wee shack- it was a dying business what with the rise of commercial fisheries and cheap product from Asia flown in every day. Still, Padre Island was a tourist destination, and in a normal year he could have sold the equivalent of today's meager stock within an hour of unlocking his door, and would have had near twenty times that left still to sell. His work might be a throwback, but it kept the lights on.

2017 wasn't a normal year, however. The hurricane had hit the southern half of the state like a Mack Truck a week and a half back, and the city was still limping its way awake. The island had only gotten electricity back two days past and no one- absolutely no one, he said to himself sternly- was coming to visit now.

Still, David couldn't afford for no one to buy his catch- he had a wife and a young son to feed- and Killian  _did_  still get his disability cheques from the Navy. He supposed he owed it to the old rogue to help where he could.

That said, he could have kept the lights off and the door to his shop closed. Nothing else was open on the island- too much damage. It was only luck of the draw- being built on the leeward side of one of the great struts for the bridge over from the mainland- that had kept the little hovel he called a store from being blown straight out to sea.

It hadn't been in his plans to open up shop until the night before when, for the first time since the hurricane had hit, he looked at his calendar and realized the date- the week after Labor Day.

Like most beaches, the height of the tourist season was Memorial Day to Labor Day. The hotels and condos on the island charged a premium for space, and the beaches and bars were always full. After Labor Day, the prices and population dropped, though the temperatures didn't, and it was the clever tourists who came then- when it was still hot enough to feel like summer, but late enough that they payed as though it were autumn.

For the last five years, it was when  _She_  had come.

He still remembered the first time she'd walked through the swinging screen door at the front of his shop. She'd stood for several moments, blinking in the dimness and, getting her bearings.

It wasn't a pre-possessing place, his shop- one room, scarcely ten feet by ten, and completely overtaken by the coolers in which he kept the day's catch. It was dark and smelled strongly of fish and salt (he did his own filleting, after all). It wasn't even easy to get to, requiring a u-turn at the bottom of the bridge to get underneath it, and yet there she was, her hair like a little sun, lighting his shop.

What a grump he'd been then, he remembered with a wince. It had only been a year since he'd lost his hand and Liam and Milah all in one fell swoop, but he still couldn't remember the interaction without a burn of shame low in his belly.

He hadn't said anything to her, just glared while those eyes (he hadn't been able to see their colour, back-lit as she'd been in that moment) traveled around the shop, taking in the hand-lettered signs listing prices- which were the only decorations on the walls- and the half-dozen coolers scattered across two folding banquet tables.

She didn't say anything either and so, after a few minutes, he'd growled, "waddaya want?" and made her jump. Apparently her light-blind eyes had missed him standing in the shadows in the back of the shop, dressed as he was in black.

"Oh!" she'd said, giving him a nervous smile. "Hi."

He should have returned the smile, but instead he'd sent her a withering glare. "You here to buy something or not?"

The smile had dropped off her face in a moment, and she should have walked out of the store at that moment, but she didn't. Instead she'd looked around one more time and said, sounding nervous, "uh…. What's fresh?"

"I get all my fish from the boats every morning, Lady. Everything's fresh."

"Oh… well your sign says that everything on it is subject to availability, so… what do you have in stock?"

He'd rattled off the available product in a single breath, and when her mouth had opened in shock, he'd sighed and said it slower as though she were a child or a mental incompetent.

"Amberjack. Roughy. Grouper. Tarpon. Snapper. Shark. Shrimp."

She'd given him an icy smile and ordered half a pound of snapper and a pound of shrimp without further dithering.

He'd heard her gasp when she'd noticed his hook, but she didn't say anything else until she'd asked if he could take plastic. He'd been able to see the slight surprise in her eyes when he had.

She'd left after that, and if the gods were fair, he'd never have seen her again. The gods aren't fair, however, they're good, and she'd returned the following day.

"Which is better for grilling, roughy or amberjack?"

And the day after.

"There's a family who sells tamales out of a cart up the street, do you know if they're any good?"

And the next day.

"Do you ever get oysters in?"

"No," he'd muttered, weighing her shrimp in his little scale.

"Where's the best place to get them then?"

He'd opened his mouth to tell her to go to Scuttlebutt's, then stopped.

"Depends on what you want, I s'pose." He looked her over- she wore jean shorts, a tank top with her bathing suit straps showing out the top, and flip flops, like every female on the island. He couldn't tell what kind of a woman she was, save stubborn enough to continue putting up with his attitude. "The tourists all like Scuttlebutt's. The clever ones like Laguna Beach."

She'd blinked in surprise and then, for the first time since the moment she'd walked in his front door three days before, she'd smiled again.

"Where do  _you_  like best?"

"Black Diamond, as it's Thursday," he'd said, without hesitation. "Water Street if it isn't."

She'd raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"Black Diamond has live local bands on Thursdays," he'd said, surprised at himself for offering information not practically forced out of him.

"Sounds perfect."

Sometime around 3 AM, Will Scarlett, bartender at the Diamond had called.

"A blonde came into the bar tonight," he'd said, not bothering to greet his old friend. "She said you'd sent her, so I told her you were standing her drinks."

Killian had shot up in bed- he hadn't been asleep, though he'd been trying to get there.

"You did  _what_?"

"Lass has good taste- drank your favorite Dreamshade Rum. You should bring her yourself instead of letting me flirt on your behalf."

"I  _should_  throw you off the end of the pier next time we go fishing."

He'd expected her in the next afternoon, as had become her habit, but his door had scarcely been unlocked when she'd darkened it, this time dressed in jeans and a silk blouse rather than beach gear.

"I want to apologize if Will made you uncomfortable," he'd said, wanting to get that out before anything else. "I didn't tell him to do it, I swear."

She'd smiled and waved a hand through the air, though if he hadn't known better, he might have said she looked disappointed.

"It was fine. Will was an absolute gentleman."

"Oh? Well… that'll be a first."

Her smile had deepened at that.

"Erm… can I get you something? We got some kingfish in. It's good with-"

"I'm leaving, actually. I just came by to… well to say thanks for recommending Black Diamond to me. I had a really great time."

"Oh." He hadn't been able to say anything more than that, as it seemed that there was something obstructing his throat.

"Yeah. So. Thanks for… everything. It was really nice to meet you… Killian."

Will must have told her his name. She'd been long vanished before his brain had started working sufficiently to realize that he hadn't ever learned her name.

The next year, the week after Labor Day, she'd been back. This time, when she smiled at him, he'd smiled back.

He'd suggested that she try the new restaurant on the island called Dragonfly, but she'd said that she only went out to a restaurant once on her vacation, and she didn't want to miss Black Diamond. Before she'd left that year, she'd told him her name was Emma.

The third year, he'd dropped by Black Diamond on the Thursday of her visit and stood her drinks for her on his own account. He found out that she preferred to mix her rum with Diet Dr Pepper, and could almost-but-not-quite drink him under the table.

The fourth year, he'd offered to take her to Dragonfly himself, so as not to disrupt her careful budget. He'd found out that her favorite food was grilled cheese, and that she preferred red wine to white.

The fifth year, he'd woken up in her hotel room the morning after Black Diamond with her already gone. He'd learned from the hotel that her surname was Swan.

He wasn't expecting her back again after that mistake anyway, and with the hurricane… but he'd flipped the little wooden sign on the front of his shack to say 'open' before he could talk himself out of it, and tried not to think about what a fool he was.

He had no customers all day. The only people who came by were other Islanders. The Zavala family, they of the tamale cart, came around noon to give him one of their abuelita's tortas for lunch. Doc, who ran a little seafood restaurant just in sight of his fish shop stopped by with a couple of beers to wile away an hour or so, and they were joined by Robin from the liquor store and Betsy, who managed one of the condominium complexes along the shore.

Finally, as the light began to fade, he flipped his sign over, though he didn't bother to lock his door- no one would come. He went into the back of the shop to get the little cooler in which he would take home the pathetic stock of the day to turn into stew- it'd been sitting out too long to do much else with.

When he'd emerged from the back, she'd been there. This time it was he that was back-lit, the sun coming in through the windows in the back of the shop, rather than the front, and she narrowed her eyes at him until he stepped through into the accustomed dimness.

Once she saw him- recognized him- her face went blank with shock. Then, like the sun rising over the ocean, she smiled and, before he could think or say anything, she threw herself into his arms and was kissing him.

"I was so scared," she said against his lips. "I thought you must have blown away. I didn't know how to reach you or… or anyone. I'm so glad you made it. I'm so glad you're safe."


End file.
